Constable Zach Rolfe has been banned from entering NT Police facilities despite being reinstated as a serving member last month, based on a complaint made by former Yuendumu police station officer-in-charge Sgt Julie Frost, who claimed she would be “triggered” if she saw him at work.

The NT Independent understands Constable Rolfe has had his access to police facilities, including all police stations and the police gym, revoked and his police identification withheld since returning to work on July 18 – four months after he was cleared by a Supreme Court jury of murder charges in the 2019 shooting death of Kumanjayi Walker.

Constable Rolfe declined to comment, but his father Richard Rolfe said in an interview that the reasons provided for his son’s ban from police premises were “insane” and has led to the officer recently taking stress leave.

Mr Rolfe questioned why the NT Police executive had never reviewed Julie Frost’s actions and decisions the night of the fatal shooting in Yuendumu and found it hard to believe she would be “triggered” by seeing Constable Rolfe.

“[Police Commissioner] Jamie Chalker has weaponised Julie Frost to stop Zach returning to work by claiming she would be triggered if she saw him, yet Frost works in Professional Services Command, which is far from every operational police station,” he said.

“Chalker has continually moved the goalposts for Zach. Initially, all he needed was to be exonerated from the ridiculous charges.

“If any other police officer on the planet had been the officer in charge at Yuendumu, then Walker would be alive today.”

During the Supreme Court murder trial, Sgt Frost was accused of having concealed notes she had written in the days after the shooting from Constable Rolfe’s committal hearing. She denied withholding the notes when cross-examined.

Mr Rolfe said her testimony during the murder trial was a “litany of lies” and “contradicted by her original notes”.

“The Crown Prosecutor … was forced to ask the most damning question in the five-week trial [to her]: Did you intentionally not tell the truth?” he said.

“In a brief compiled by the Northern Territory Police, that is three times the size of the Ivan Milat file, there is not a single page, paragraph or sentence that reviews or evaluates the performance of Julie Frost. At all times, her statements are accepted as gospel.”

Sgt Frost had testified at the trial that her plan as the officer-in-charge at Yuendumu was to arrest Kumanjayi Walker at 5am the next morning when he would be asleep, but conceded in court that she did not know where he was at the time. He was later located by Constable Zach Rolfe and his partner Adam Eberl the evening of November 9, 2019, when he was shot after stabbing Constable Rolfe and wrestling with Constable Eberl.

The issue of a planned arrest had been a major point of contention during the trial.

Carey Joy, a former police officer who led the Immediate Response Team’s earlier incarnation, previously criticised Sgt Frost’s handling of the situation in Yuendumu, suggesting that court proceedings showed proper police procedures for dealing with a dangerous offender were not followed.

“If any leader/supervisor would assess those facts and deem this planned police response as less than high-risk, they should not be employed in any policing role,” he wrote in a piece for the NT Independent in May.

“The risks clearly show that Constables Rolfe and Eberl, and the rest of the IRT members and dog handler, were deployed to Yuendumu to locate and arrest Walker in circumstances that are 100 per cent against all of our mandatory deployment rules and requirements.”

Mr Joy also raised questions about Sgt Frost’s actions at the station after Constable Rolfe had brought Mr Walker back, where he tried to save his life.

Sgt Frost had previously worked as a nurse for 16 years but body-worn video footage from that night showed she did not take any action to save Mr Walker’s life.

“[Sgt Frost] had 16 years experience as a nurse prior to becoming a police officer,” he wrote.

“In the video footage made public, she appeared not to have rendered any medical attention to Walker as he lay in the police station dying. Furthermore, as the Sergeant in charge of the station and knowing there were no medical staff in the community, it appears from documented evidence that she had not ascertained if they had a working defibrillator or first aid kit in the station, which is the responsibility of the Station Sergeant.”

Mr Rolfe said he could not conceive how Sgt Frost had not been issued disciplinary notices for her failures at Yuendumu and questioned why she had been moved to Yulara and then promoted to be Deputy Commissioner Murray Smalpage’s chief of staff and then promoted to work in Professional Standards Command.

Mr Rolfe said Sgt Frost had also not disclosed her medical background to a medical expert the NT Police had hired to write a report about the police’s actions on the night of the shooting.

“After all that, Jamie Chalker protects, promotes and rewards Julie Frost knowing that she should be charged with perjury, knowing she should be charged with failure to rescue for refusing to provide first aid and that she could have saved Walker’s life, and knowing that her complete dereliction of duty was responsible for the death of Kumanjayi Walker and that even with all the community anger towards Frost, she’s still given a get-out-of-jail card with no follow up. No investigations, no evaluation of her actions.”

Sgt Frost and Mr Chalker did not respond to the NT Independent’s questions for this article.

Mr Rolfe said not allowing Zach Rolfe back on general duties and banning him from police premises contradicted advice by mental health professionals who had recommended he be reintegrated into the force and work with his peers.

Hours after his acquittal, Constable Rolfe was directed to take leave while the top brass assessed dozens of alleged serious breaches of discipline, including historic use-of-force allegations, talking to the media and private messages he had sent friends critical of police. The officer reviewing those disciplinary matters was recently charged with assault and will appear in court on September 20.

Constable Rolfe was later cleared of all disciplinary matters and reinstated as a police member.

However, it’s understood he had been relegated to working on computer software for the police at a non-descript building in the CBD before going on stress leave until September 5, the day the coronial inquiry will begin into the death of Kumanjayi Walker, where he is expected to appear.